


Hell of a Day

by Persiflage



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Comfort Food, Cooking, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired By Tumblr, Killer Robots, Missions, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson's Superpowers, Spooning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5603533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy's team has to help Steve and Natasha deal with a gigantic killer robot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell of a Day

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this prompt on Tumblr: _standing quietly together in the kitchen after long, exhausting days, leaning into each other for support, breathing in the smell of home, fingers carding through hair and stroking down spines, until they feel like they can relax and smile properly again_ And had to write it.

Daisy yells Coulson's name as the freaky killer robot turns its attentions to her partner and lover, and he ducks, but not fast enough, and as she hits the guy who's attacking her with a wave of vibrations that stop his heart dead, she can hear Coulson's yells of agony. As soon as her attacker drops to the ground she turns her attention to the robot, directing a stream of vibrations at the thing's knee, but although it staggers a bit, it doesn't fall, nor does it drop Coulson. She can see him, clutched in the robot's left hand, high above her head – Coulson's not moving, and she worries the machine might've crushed him. Rage fills her such as she's rarely experienced before, and she backs up a bit, then sprints towards the robot, leaping upwards as she comes within striking distance; she pushes both her hands down to the ground, vibrating the air and forcing herself higher. This is a new trick, scarcely refined, and certainly never tried in the field before, but desperate times and all that.

She grabs the robot's right arm just as her vibrations fail to hold her up, and she swings herself up, pulling herself onto the huge metal arm. It turns its head towards her, and although it's a machine, and doesn't have the kind of face with which to convey emotions, she can tell it's surprised to see her straddling its arm.

"You should not be here." It announces in a monotone that booms around the Square, rattling the windows in the nearby skyscrapers.

"If anyone shouldn't be here, it's you," Daisy snarls. She gets to her feet and runs up the robot's arm to its shoulder, practically holding her breath as she hopes to keep her balance – the ground is a very long way down, and if she falls she'll be badly injured, if not killed outright. She can't think about that, though, nor worry about whether or not Coulson's okay – the first and most important thing is to stop the killer robot from rampaging around central New York.

She wishes Joey was here with his awesome metal-melting powers, but he was several blocks away, the last time she spoke to him. She tries not to wonder about how the rest of her team are faring, or whether Steve and Natasha are still alive – those are things to worry about later, after the giant killer robot's been dealt with.

Daisy reaches the robot's neck and is relieved to see that the metal plates that make up the thing's head and neck aren't entirely smooth. She grabs at handholds and swings herself off its neck and onto the back of its head until she sees a hatch. She has to let go with one hand to vibrate the hatch off, but there's nothing for it. She deliberately doesn't look to see where the metal plate falls – she knows she risks injuring anyone below, but the robot's going to kill many more people if she can't stop it. Looking into the thing's head, she sees a mass of wires and circuit boards, and since she doesn't have time to figure out what any of it does, she simply reaches inside, then begins pulling out wires and carelessly tossing the circuit boards to the ground.

"Whaaaaaat arrrrre yoooooooou dooooooing?" asks the robot, its speech weirdly distorted.

"Stopping you," Daisy tells it.

"Nooooo." The voice starts out loud and booming, but goes softer and becomes more of a drawl as she continues to toss parts to the ground. She can hear it whirring and clanking as she drops the last of the circuit boards, but she ignores that in order to swing and scramble across onto its left shoulder before she slides down its arm to the hand which is still clutching Coulson.

She reaches for him and immediately breathes a sigh of relief when she discovers he's still alive, if limp and unconscious. She tugs a coiled length of line from one of the pouches on her utility belt, attaches a grappling hook that had been hanging from a loop on her belt, then swings the line around her head before letting it fly towards the roof of the nearest building, which is thankfully still mostly intact. When the hook catches on the edge of the roof Daisy blows out a soft sigh of relief, then tugs sharply on the line to check that it's secure. Satisfied that it is, she clips her shoulder harness onto the line, then carefully vibrates the robot's fingers apart, grabbing hold of Coulson as tightly as she can with both her legs and one of her arms. She reaches up to the harness clip and sets herself in motion, sliding them both down the line. As they near the building she lets go of the harness clip and pushes vibrations at the edge of the roof, simultaneously slowing their descent and pushing the stonework out of the way so that she won't have to climb over and onto the roof, or manhandle Coulson over. Her vibrations create a kind of cushioning effect, not dissimilar to the trick she uses to slow falling bodies and objects, giving them a more controlled descent.

Despite the vibrations and hitting the roof feet first, Daisy almost loses her grip on Coulson's unconscious form, and she's just relieved they're on more or less solid ground, well a relatively solid roof. She manages to lower Coulson down onto the stonework before she drops him, but she still succeeds in jolting him, and it brings him around with a groan of pain. She quickly kneels beside him, running anxious fingers over him as she checks for any broken bones. (The best side effect, if you can call it that, of being Phil Coulson's lover is knowing his body and vibrations so intimately that she can literally tell when he's broken any bones without the need for an X-ray.)

"Nothing's broken," she tells him softly, then eases him up into a sitting position, giving him the chance to catch his breath and reorient himself. "I suspect you'll have a spectacular set of bruises, though."

He grunts an acknowledgement, then lifts his right hand and drags it wearily down his face before asking, "What happened to the mighty metal monster?"

"I deactivated it."

He nods, then winces and lightly massages the back of his neck. "Can we get out of here?" His tone is mild, but she can tell how much he doesn't want to be here.

"Yeah. I mean, we're gonna have to do a debrief first, but I vote someone else does the whole press conference/clean up thing."

"Yeah."

She gets to her feet, then clasps his hands in hers and pulls him upright. He walks towards the edge of the roof and peers down, and Daisy joins him. The robot, which was at least twenty foot tall by her reckoning, is sprawled face-down in the street below.

"Good work," he tells her. "And thanks for the rescue."

She nods, then slips her right hand into his left and leads him across the roof to the door that will take them down through the building and out into the street.

AC-S-AC-S-AC

Several hours later the two of them are at The Retreat. It's become their go-to place for rest and recuperation after their more dangerous missions. Unfortunately a lot of their missions are dangerous these days – between dealing with the still-emerging newly-empowered Inhumans, and the aftermath of the failed Superhero Registration Act, which has left a lingering distrust, if not outright fear and hatred, of anyone with powers.

These days no one but the very newest recruits even blinks at the idea of Daisy and Coulson being a couple, and when they do it's because of the difference in their ages rather than the fact that Agent Coulson was formerly the Director of SHIELD.

Coulson's been checked over and been given the all-clear by Bobbi, with a recommendation that he get at least two days rest to allow his bruises to heal – he has a set of them shaped like the robot's fingers all down his side from where the thing had held him clutched in its hand.

Daisy's in her usual post-mission state – hungry and exhausted, and still coming down off the adrenaline high. She showers, then changes into a clean tank and a pair of black jeans, leaving her field suit hanging in the closet, before she wanders into the main room where she sees Coulson standing by the sink. She can smell the soup he's pouring into a pan, and as she gets closer she can see he's got out the ingredients for grilled cheese, and she feels a surge of love and affection for the man, even as he turns towards her.

"Hey," he says softly as she reaches his side.

"Hi." She leans into his side (the one that's not bruised), and his hand comes up to stroke down her spine in a familiar, soothing gesture. She turns towards him and he slides his hand back up her spine to hold the back of her head, his fingers combing through her hair. (It's not as long as it was when she first met him, but neither is it as short as she cut it after he lost his hand and she lost her parents.)

She encourages him to lean into her body, despite her own exhaustion, and strokes the nape of his neck in the way she knows he finds most relaxing.

She can feel his vibrations changing as the tension begins to ebb out of his body as they continue to touch each other. It's not about sex – they're not ready for that yet – but about comfort and support, and their mutual happy-to-be-alive-and-with-you feelings.

She can tell the exact moment at which the adrenaline leaves Coulson's body – the way his vibrations change (even though they've been changing ever since she first touched him) pinpoints the moment for her, and he sighs softly, then pulls back to look her in the eye.

"Hey," he says again, and gives her the soft smile he always reserves for her.

"Hi," she repeats. She can't manage a smile, not just yet, but she knows Coulson will understand, that he knows it generally takes her longer to come down than him (his greater experience of being a field agent, and her experience of being a powered person, means they need differing amounts of recovery time).

"What do you need first?" he asks. "Food or sleep?"

He always asks, even though he knows she'll invariably answer, as she does now, "Food first."

He nods, then leans in and presses his lips to her brow, before taking her hand and guiding her to the stove. And since they've done this more than a hundred times, she already knows he wants her to stir the soup (homemade and kept chilled against this need) while he concentrates on making them grilled cheese. He's long since disclosed his grandmother's secret recipe to her so that she could, theoretically, make it herself, but she much prefers to let him make it.

As she begins to stir the soup, she lets her thoughts drift to the rest of her team; while Coulson's her second-in-command at The Cocoon, Joey Gutierrez has developed into an excellent team-leader, and it's been a thrill for her, during their last handful of missions, to see him flourishing in that role. It's three years since Joey went through Terrigenesis, and he's grown into his powers, and grown in confidence too, in the interim.

Alisha leads Daisy's second team, and it's strange, sometimes, to recall that when they initially met they were on opposing sides thanks to Jiaying's machinations. The two have achieved a good understanding, and a good rapport, since then, even if they aren't close friends.

It's even stranger, though, to think that there are now nearly thirty Inhumans based at The Cocoon when Daisy can still recall the days when getting to Joey before anyone else had been a major triumph.

That thought, though, inevitably leads her to the ATCU and Rosalind Price, to Andrew Garner and Lash, and to Ward and Malick, and she knows how lucky she and her friends are that they've survived this far.

She's drawn back out of her recollections by Coulson's hand stroking down her spine, and she looks around to see he's watching her in obvious concern.

"You're nearly asleep on your feet," he observes, and she can feel the anxiety that's colouring his vibrations.

She shakes her head. "I just got lost in my thoughts, that's all," she says reassuringly.

"Let's eat," he says, and she nods, registering that the soup is hot, and there's a plate nearby stacked with grilled cheese sandwiches. 

Her stomach growls loudly, and she chuckles weakly. "Yeah, food," she agrees.

Coulson passes her the plate of sandwiches, then takes the pan from the heat, turning off the burner. Daisy carries the plate over to the table, which Coulson's already laid with a cloth, cutlery, napkins, and plates. He joins her shortly after she sets the grilled cheese down, carrying two bowls of the thick beef broth that he tends to make for her post-mission refuelling.

They eat in a companionable silence, then Daisy heads to the bedroom before exhaustion leads her to collapse on the floor – she doesn't want to do that to Coulson. She knows he'll do the washing up, and that he'll join her, in all probability, once the kitchen area's clean and tidy again. 

As she strips off and crawls under the covers Daisy acknowledges once more that having Phil Coulson in her life is definitely the best thing that's ever befallen her.

She's more than half asleep when he slips under the covers beside her, wearing just his boxers, and when he spoons his body around hers, his arms resting comfortably across her torso, she feels the last of her adrenaline ebb away, and as relaxation loosens her limbs, she murmurs, "I love you."

"Love you too," he whispers softly, then nuzzles the side of her neck. "Now go to sleep."

"Mmm."


End file.
